Dan works at a bookstore in a deadly dull shopping mall where nothing
ever happens. He's an angsty emo-kid who sells mid-list books to
mid-list people for the minimum wage. He hates his job. Rhoda has
dragged her babysitting charge to the mall so she can meet her dealer
and score some coke. Now the kid's run off, and she has two hours to
find him. She hates her life.
Rhoda bullies Dan into helping her search, but as they explore the
neon-lit corridors behind the mall, disturbing text messages lure them
into the bowels of the building, where old mannequins are stored in
grave-like piles and raw sewage drips off the ceiling. The only escape
is down, and before long Dan and Rhoda are trapped in a service lift
listening to head-splitting musak. Worst of all, the lift's not stopping
at the bottom floor.
Plummeting into the earth, Dan and Rhoda enter a sinister underworld
that mirrors their worst fears. Forced to complete a series of twisted
tasks to find their way out, they finally emerge into the brightly lit
food court, sick with relief at the banal sight of people shopping and
eating. But something feels different. Why are the shoppers all pumped
full of silicone? Why are the shop assistants chained to their counters?
And why is a cafe called McColon's selling lumps of bleeding meat? Just
when they think they've made it back to the mall, they realise their
nightmare has only just begun....
Sarah Lotz and Louis Greenberg met in a pub while bunking a crime
seminar and, as one does at pubs, discovered a mutual interest in
horror. Sarah, a crime novelist and screenwriter, was a die-hard zombie
fanatic; Louis, a literary writer, editor and recovering bookseller, had
studied vampire and apocalyptic fiction. Rejecting their initial plans
for a vampire-vs-zombie faceoff, they decided to write the first
mainstream South African horror novel together and S.L. Grey was born.
Sarah also writes the Deadlands series of zombie novels for young adults
with her daughter Savannah.
